Basic Concepts

This section serves as an introduction to the ZED Plugin for Unity. It details some of the plugin’s basic concepts and features which you will find useful in most projects.

Cameras

When you create a new project and import ZEDCamera.package, you will find a Mono and Stereo camera rig in the Prefabs folder: ZED_Rig_Mono and ZED_Rig_Stereo.
These prefabs are custom AR cameras that replace the regular Unity Camera in a scene. They mix the virtual 3D elements rendered by the Unity camera with the real-world video captured by the ZED.

Attached to the ZED Rig Mono is Camera_Left which contains a Frame holding the video source of the left camera. The ZED Rig Stereo prefab contains both the left and right video sources for passthrough AR. When adding the ZED Rig to your hierarchy, it will appear at (0,0,0) with -Z representing the forward direction facing the camera.

Note: When adding ZED Rig to your project, delete the Main Camera from the Hierarchy to avoid interfering with the embedded camera of the prefab. If your use case requires multiple camera outputs in your scene, you may need multiple display windows visible in the editor.

Depth-aware AR

The ZED and ZED Mini cameras capture depth and normal maps of the surrounding environment in real-time. To create a believable and interactive AR/MR experience, the depth and normal buffers captured by the cameras are integrated into the Unity rendering pipeline. This allows to add several key AR features:

Object placement: Virtual objects can be placed anywhere in the real world without having to scan the environment first. See Object Placement to learn more.

Interactive collisions: Virtual elements can collide with real people and objects moving in the camera field of view.

Realistic shadows and lighting: Unity’s lights can cast shadows and project light onto the real world. See Lighting and Shadows to learn how to enable interactive AR lighting.

Depth occlusions: Virtual objects are naturally occluded by the surrounding environment. Occlusions are automatically enabled by the plugin.

The features above are accessible through the ZED Manager or support functions located in the Scripts folder of the package. Explore the different samples to learn how to use these support functions.

ZED Manager

The ZED Manager allows you to configure video, depth and tracking parameters. These parameters are set by default and you often don’t need to modify them when adding a rig prefab to your project.

After adding a ZED_Rig_mono or ZED_Rig_Stereo to the Hierarchy view, click on it to access the parameters of the ZED Manager script in the Inspector window.

Camera

Resolution: Video mode of the ZED camera. Higher resolutions result in lower FPS. See Video Modes.

Motion Tracking

Enable Tracking: If positional tracking is enabled, the virtual rig automatically moves to match the real-world movement of the device using its own input (no need for an external tracker). This allows you to place virtual objects in the scene and make sure they keep their real-world position while you move.
Disable this option when using external sensors for tracking. See Positional Tracking.

Enable Spatial Memory: Enable spatial memory to correct drift during tracking. There can be small pose jumps when a correction is required. See Spatial Memory.

Path Spatial Memory: Path to the file that will be loaded and/or saved by the Spatial Memory. Loading an existing file will allow absolute localization in an environment. Leaving blank will not save an area file at the end of a tracking session.

Using SVO files

During application development, it can be easier to work with a recorded video instead of a live video feed. In Unity, you can record and read SVO files by selecting ZED_Rig_Mono or ZED_Rig_Stereo in the Hierarchy panel, then Add Component > SVO Manager in the Inspector panel.